


from eden.

by leeinthesky



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Jealousy, Oblivious Peter, flash can go suck a dick ok, gwen stacy is a gem, like fr, may ships it, michelle is jealous as heck, ned and michelle are besties, no gwen bashing here people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 12:58:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12276951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeinthesky/pseuds/leeinthesky
Summary: honey you're familiar like my mirror years agoidealism sits prison, chivalry fell on its swordinnocence died screaming, honey ask me I should knowI slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your doormichelle jones doesn’t like people. so why is she so caught up on peter parker?





	from eden.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m in love with these dorks!!!! also i wrote his at 3am last night in a benadryl induced haze so i’m sorry if his makes zero sense. 
> 
> I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS EXCEPT FOR THE OCs!!!!!
> 
> trigger warning for talk of domestic abuse, be careful y’all

michelle jones doesn’t like people. 

she already finds most people she meets insufferable for one reason or another, so most of her relationships are on the border of ‘toleration’. her home life has put her off the idea of marriage; and anyways, almost 50 percent of modern marriages end in divorce. the only people michelle really, _truly_ loves are her brother chris, who works at the hospital in forest park and is eternally busy, and her kid sister anna, who is too sweet for the world and is mj’s whole life. 

 

so why is michelle so caught up on peter parker?

 

she doesn’t notice it at first. the way he can make her actually laugh, even if its because he’s just so awkward. how she finds herself looking for him in the hallway between class because she thought of something he'd like. or the fuzzy feeling she gets when his eyes light up because he’s talking about something he’s passionate about. when she does notice it, she dismisses the weird feelings as friendship. friends weren’t something she’d had before that decathalon practice when she’d surprised herself and boldly said ‘my friends call me mj’. 

but michelle is anything but stupid: when the feelings aren’t gone after friendship week 5, she knows something else is up. a brief internet search has her slamming shut her laptop and huffing out a laugh- she does _not_ have a crush on peter parker. sure, michelle has had crushes before, but they’d been on people she had no chance with or people who were totally inaccessible, like her brother’s best friend or the cute girl who worked the counter at the bodega around the corner from her apartment. this one was scary because she _could_ have peter if she really wanted. 

mj decided resolutely that she does not want peter parker and sternly told herself to forget about it. 

and she tried to. she really, really did. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

michelle’s plan is shot to hell when she spots peter in the hallway one morning, wearing his stupid midtown sweater with that stupid blue button down underneath, his stupid curly hair flopping stupidly in front of his eyes and he laughs his stupid laugh. she stops walking and ducks into a corner by the lockers, hoping to watch him a little while longer. suddenly, she spots the person making him laugh like that and it’s not ned- its some blonde girl. michelle wants to believe that it’s betty brandt and that ned finally got over himself and asked her out, but she just passed betty in the fine arts room. 

mj tells herself she doesn't care, that peter can talk to whatever girl he wants to, but she knows this isn’t true because her feet are walking her over there and her brain already hates this girl. 

‘hey! mj!’ peter calls when he sees her, waving her over. 

‘’sup parker,’ she greets. ‘who’s this?’ michelle looks this girl over and her brain unwillingly hates her less. she’s pretty and stylish and blonde and peppy, and the other guys walking down the hall are all tripping over themselves trying to get a look at her, but she’s got that look about her that makes you like her, that sweet one that says she genuinely cares about you. she’s also the exact opposite of mj. 

‘oh, yeah,’ peter says, remembering his friend. ‘mj, meet gwen stacey. she used to live right between me and ned when we were in elementary school and she just transferred here for the rest of the year. gwen, meet mj.’

‘michelle,’ mj quickly corrects. this girl isn’t her friend. she sees peter give her a look but can’t bring herself to care. 

‘right, michelle,’ gwen laughs. even her laugh is cute. dammit. ‘pete’s told me all about you, it’s not every day this dork makes a friend.’

mj feels her heart flutter. _he talks about you!_ she tries as hard as she can to keep her face devoid of emotion as she continues to just stare at gwen. the girl doesn’t flinch, which mj has to give her props for. peter stares nervously between the two of them, not really knowing what to do. 

‘okay,’ mj says finally. ‘see you later, nerd. don’t skip decathlon practice to hang out with your friend.’ she doesn’t feel bad about pushing between them to walk to her class until she hears peter apologize, saying ‘I don’t know what’s up with her today, she’s not usually like this.’ 

michelle spends he rest of the day alternating between trying to convince herself she didn’t like gwen and wondering why she couldn’t make peter laugh like that. 

realistically speaking, peter probably doesn’t even like gwen like that. he said they’d been friends, and mj can always see through his bullshit so she knows he’s not lying when he says that. and besides, peter parker has a type. there was liz, and before liz had been an annie in freshman year, and before annie had been a girl who could’ve been called either kaylee or kaitlin (mj only vaguely remembered passing her in the hallways of their middle school, she hadn’t been the absurdly pretty or insanely popular type that mj prefered to study). all these girls came from differring backgrounds but had one similarity- they were all completely out of peter’s league. liz had been the popular senior, annie was literally a model, and kaylee/kaitlin was the mvp of ps 87’s girl’s soccer team all three years of middle school. they’re alike in this way; both like their crushes to be high-profile, but mj thinks peter must be a masochist or maybe have a humiliation kink with the way he falls all over these girls so publicly. 

therefore gwen probably has no chance with peter. it’s not that she isn’t pretty or popular like the other girls, it’s that she’s so accessible to him. there’s no chase at all- mj figures if parker asked her out she’d say yes right away. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so basically, perfect gwen ruins mj’s perfect ‘ignore your feelings until they go away’ plan. michelle doesn’t like this and therefore decides to take it out on peter. not that she wants to inflict emotional harm on him purposefully, but its kinda her coping mechanism/default reaction at this point. for the next week, peter parker finds himself the emotional voodoo doll of michelle jones without having the slightest notion as to why. he gets drilled mercilessly in decathalon practice, tripped in the hallway, called out for the slightest things, and embarassed as much as possible in front of gwen. the final straw for both him and mj is when michelle overhears gwen inviting herself to the gang’s sci-fi night (their beloved weekly nerd marathon) in gym class. 

as coach calls time and everyone goes back to the locker rooms to change, mj grabs peter by the arm and drags him to a corner. 

‘what the hell, parker? did gwen stacey just invite herself to _our_ nerd night?’ she practically growls. 

‘oh, yeah, she did,’ peter replies happily, totally oblivious. ‘but it’s cool, ned won’t care and she’s caught up on doctor who so it won’t be-‘

‘ned will be fine with it? what about me, peter?!’ michelle is totally aware that she’s being a little louder than she’d like and also that people are starting to come out of the locker rooms. 

peter frowns at this. ‘do you care? I mean…I figured you’d be alright with her coming, it was kinda a sausage fest with just me, you, and ned.’

michelle laughs dryly. ‘yes, I obviously care if she comes. I don’t like her, and I haven’t exactly made it a secret. if you paid attention to literally anyone other than yourself you’d have realized that!’

there’s a crowd gathering now, and there’s a collective _‘oooooohhh’_ at this. peter glances around and sucks his teeth like he doesn’t know if he should say what he’s thinking or not. mj can see ned looking on worriedly from the back of the group. 

unfortunately, she just doesn’t know where to stop. 

 

‘what, parker? I can see you wanna say something, so spit it out!’ michelle yells at him. 

he nods, steeling himself. ’you’re obviously the one being selfish right now. if you don’t like that gwen is coming then you just shouldn’t come.’ peter turns away from a stunned michelle, but before he can get very far, flash comes out of the locker room with a gleeful expression. mj should just walk away now before he gets her more rilled up, but she really wants to punch something and flash thompson’s face looks like the perfect thing. 

‘well, well, well!’ he saunters over like he owns the place. ‘trouble in paradise? are midtown’s power dweebs fighting over something?’ 

michelle knows better than to look in gwen’s direction, but peter doesn’t. his eyes flicker to where she’s standing, watching on confusedly, for a split second but flash catches it. ‘ohhh,’ he laughes. ‘michelle is _jealous!_ I can see why, babe, gwen stacey’s practically perfect and you’re just…not.’ there’s a collective laugh, and it feels like everyone is circling up, cutting her off from ned (who is like, 90% of her impulse control), peter, and gwen. mj can feel her cheeks heating up, so she fixes her eyes on the ground and tells herself that she can take it, flash has tried to get to her before. ‘and anyways, you’re damaged goods, right michelle? parker wouldn’t want you even if you were perfect.’ 

mj’s head snaps up sharply. she looks past flash’s smug face right into peter’s eyes. he looks confused and worried, and she knows her face is mirroring his worry. how could flash know? she fights hard to keep her home life a secret from everyone because she can’t bear to loose her little sister to the system. mj stays as still as possible, hoping and praying to any god listening that flash doesn’t keep talking. but everyone else is murmuring around her, and flash can’t resist a chance to show off that he knows more than someone else. 

‘what you didn’t know?’ he looks around. ‘michelle’s dad beats her. and her mom’s a whore. there’s a rumor her little sister isn’t actually her sister.’

that’s it, that’s all mj can take. she lunges at flash and takes him down with one perfectly placed punch to the nose. the others in her class do nothing to stop her, actually backing up to give her space to beat the shit out of him. _bam, bam, bam_ ; michelle keeps punching, not even stopping when one of flash’s hands comes up and hits her in the eye. she can hear peter screaming at her to stop, but someone’s holding him back. mj thinks it’s probably ned until a pair of arms grab her from behind and drag her off flash. 

‘get off of me!’ she fights whoever is holding her until her head clears enough to recognize the terrible calvin klein cologne ned wears and can hear him whispering to calm down in her ear. she finally stops fighting like an animal and goes limp in his arms.

‘you gotta get out of here,’ her brain registers ned saying. ‘someone called principal kim, you gotta get out of here right now.’ mj nods, and he pulls her into a bear hug before letting her go and whispering ‘go’. she grabs her bag from the bleachers and looks at flash holding his bloody face before running out of the gymnasium and all the way home. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

michelle takes the afternoon to think about how she fucked up. she tried to stay under the radar for a _reason_ , and now all everyone was going to be able to talk about for ever was how michelle jones punched flash thompson for saying her dad beat her. mj tries to wallow in self pity for an hour, but can feel herself quickly slipping into a depressive episode, so she decides to go pick up anna from school. it’s not far, and anna usually walks it herself despite being only 10, but mj really just needs to see her as soon as possible. she’s fine, of course, and one of the first kids to come spilling out of the school. michelle can see her confused expression from across the playground, but anna’s a good kid and just says goodbye to her friends before walking over. 

‘hey, banana,’ michelle says as anna walks up to her. 

‘jesus, miche, what happened?’ anna runs her hand over the black eye quickly forming and mj is reminded of when they were little and anna tried to make her feel better after their dad got mad. she tries not to cry. 

‘nothing. I'm fine. how was school?’ 

anna still looks skeptical, but knows better than to ask. she starts chattering away about history class and her friends and the teacher she thinks is cute. they’re home in no time, and mj doesn’t even notice the person standing outside their door until anna freezes at the end of the hallway. 

gwen stacey looks sheepish as she watches the sisters’ approach. mj puts an arm around anna protectively as they make their way over to her. they stop just short of the welcome mat, and the girls all size each other up. 

‘how do you know where I live?’ michelle finally asks. 

‘I asked peter. he’s really worried about you, you know,’ gwen answers. 

mj looks down at her sister. ‘go inside and start on you homework.’

‘but-‘ anna starts to protest, but michelle raises her eyebrows at her and she complies, taking one last peek at gwen before shutting the door. 

the two older girls are quiet again. ‘what do you want?’ mj asks finally. 

‘I wanted to apologize.’

‘for what? you haven’t done anything to me.’ michelle knows this is a lie the second it leaves her mouth, and apparently so does gwen. 

‘oh, come on. I might as well have given you that black eye myself,’ gwen laughs bitterly. suddenly, mj realizes that the other girl feels guilty, and she’s afraid she may have sized gwen stacey up all wrong. 

‘then I'm sorry too. I haven’t been very nice to you,’ michelle concedes. ‘I was just…’

‘jealous.’

michelle fixes her death glare on gwen but the other girl doesn’t flinch away because she knows she’s right. mj doesn’t like how vulnerable the other girl makes her feel. gwen can see straight through the veneer she has up like no one else. except peter. 

‘yeah,’ she all but whispers. ‘I was jealous. I mean, flash was right. you’re pretty much perfect and I'm not, and you’ve known peter forever and you guys are like, the greatest match ever.’

‘sure,’ gwen says. ‘I've known peter forever. but no one knows him better than ned, may, and _you_. you’re all he talks about. the book you’ve loaned him. how you wore your hair today. the joke you told him in the hallway. pete’s in deep and he doesn’t even realize it. I mean, we passed a store that was selling toblerone yesterday and he mentioned how you said in passing three months ago that toblerone with hazelnuts is your favorite chocolate. who would remember that? only someone who’s in love.’ this makes mj roll her eyes, but gwen powers on. ‘I mean it, michelle. you wanna know the reason we’re so close? he came and lived with me in the months after his parents died. that’s the only reason. I saw the second I stepped into midtown that he was yours, and I would never do anything to try and sabotage that for him or you. that’s like, girl code 101.’

michelle stares at gwen for a second, trying to see if she’s sincere, before nodding. ‘I never thought it was possible for me to be with him. I mean…he’s so…him.’

‘I know what you mean,’ gwen laughs. ‘lucky for you, ned is over there right now talking some sense into that boy.’

sure enough, mj gets a text from peter a split second later. she stares at her phone long enough to make gwen get antsy and try to take a peek. ‘he wants me to come over,’ michelle explains finally. 

‘well then go! get your man,’ gwen says like it’s the most simple thing in the world. and mj supposes it is. she goes to run down the creaky stairs but gwen stops her. ‘hey, I know you probably don’t want to talk about what’s going on here,’ she waves her hands vaguely towards the apartment and grabs michelle’s phone, typing something down,’ but if you ever do, you have my number now.’

mj stares at the contact information. ‘thanks,’ she says as sincerely as she can. 

‘of course. now go!’ gwen ushers her out. 

michelle sprints the 7 blocks to peter’s place. she has no idea what she’ll say to him ( _I'm sorry_ , probably), or what’ll happen (ideally: he’ll kiss her), but she doesn’t really care. mj passes ned on the sidewalk outside, and he whoops joyfully after her. she slips in the building’s door after someone and runs up the stairs. michelle has barely knocked when peter yanks open the door. they stare at each other, not exactly sure what to say. he opens his mouth, then thinks better of it and just lunges at her. mj meets him halfway and, as she tangles her hands in his floppy hair, firmly presses her lips to his. neither of them are the most experienced kisser, but michelle is too distracted by peter’s baby soft lips and his hands on her waist. he pulls her into his apartment, slams the door without breaking their kiss, then promptly pushes her up against said door. it’s bold, and mj can’t let him one up her, so she pushes open his mouth with her tongue and revels in the breathy sigh he makes. when they finally break apart, peter lets his forehead fall on hers and gently places a hand on the uninjured side of her face. 

‘I'm sorry about earlier,’ he whispers, staring into her eyes and rubbing her cheek slightly with his thumb. it’s sweet, michelle thinks. 

‘me too. gwen came over and explained everything to me,’ she says back. `what did ned say to you?’

‘he knocked me in the head, said ‘you like her you dimwit’, then told me he’d take credit in his best man speech,’ pete laughs. 

‘sounds like him.’

‘yeah.’ peter kisses mj’s forehead before pulling away. ‘come sit, let me look at your face.’

she concedes and sits on the couch, watching as he digs around in a cabinet for something, and then the fridge. he comes over with a cold pack and a glass of orange juice. 

‘here, put this on your eye and drink the juice. the vitamin c will help it heal,’ he says. 

‘you know a lot about bruises,’ mj muses. ‘from being spiderman?’ she wanted to laugh as peter froze, but refrained. really, he didn’t think she’d guess?

‘how long have you known?’ he squeaked out. 

she did laugh then. ‘since d.c.. really peter, friendly _neighborhood_ spiderman in washington instead of queens? gotta work on that.’

he groans as she drains the glass of orange juice. ‘well, you’re right. but I guess I don’t need to tell you how to treat bruises.’ it’s an offhand comment, but it carries a lot of weight. peter freezes when he realizes what he’s said. ‘I'm sorry, that was rude.’

‘it’s alright, peter,’ she says softly, standing to put her empty glass in the sink. 

‘it’s really not,’ pete insists, taking her hand. ‘why didn’t you tell me? or ned?’

‘there’s nothing you can do. I can’t report my dad because we’d go to CPS. my mom used to have a drug problem, so she wouldn’t get custody. and chris works all the time, so a court would never grant him guardianship. child services tries to keep siblings together, but there’s no guarantee me and anna would go to the same place, and I can’t risk that.’ michelle shrugged hoplessly. ‘I just tell myself that I only have two more years until I'm 18 and I can sue for custody of anna.’

peter seems to grasp that there’s really nothing he can do and nods. ‘well if it ever gets bad, come here. may already likes you more than me and she’d spoil anna rotten.’

‘thank you,’ michelle says for what feels like billionth time today. she doesn’t know how to tell peter how thankful she is for him, so she just kisses him sweetly. he must get it, because she can feel him smiling into her. 

‘well it’s about goddamn time!’

mj and peter jump apart at the sound of may, who is smiling widely and has out her phone in a way that suggests she took a picture of them, in the doorway. mj just smiles back and puts her arm around pete’s waist. as she listens to him stutter and try to explain himself to may, michelle jones looks up at her (now) boyfriend and realizes she was wrong about herself. 

she does like one person, and his name is peter parker.

**Author's Note:**

> leave kudos and comments babes!!
> 
> follow me on my tumblr: welcome-to-the-13th


End file.
